


Handmaid Knight: Meta

by ghostwriterofthemachine, GraceEliz



Series: shelter in place [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
Genre: Gen, Literary Theory, M raiting for themes discussed and explored, Meta, Meta exploration into The Handmaid Knight, Snark, Symbolism, Worldbuilding, the Authors highly encourage reader interaction!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:07:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 7,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28429767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostwriterofthemachine/pseuds/ghostwriterofthemachine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraceEliz/pseuds/GraceEliz
Summary: Author's notes and explanation of themes, events, writing processes, so and so forth ad infinitum really. We are two very snarky literature nerds. Come scream with us!And yes, if you're wondering whether any part of the fic is supposed to be as it is, if one particular word is meant to readlike that, the answer is yes.
Series: shelter in place [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2082360
Comments: 15
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: please do not quote us in your A-Level exam or whatever because references to the Jedi do not get you marks, trust me.
> 
> _I don’t know how to say A-Levels in American but yeah, don’t do that. -ghostwriter_

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the general concept, names, and titles.

_Great Training Hall: Hey ever make a violation worse by setting that violation in a place that is not only familiar but should be safe and comforting? Ever think about how doing that might deepen the trauma of the violation and make the people experiencing it feel like there’s no safe place left? So, unfortunately, have we. -ghostwriter_

Aunts: the Aunts, and Uncles, are Fallen Jedi, users of the Dark Side under the thumbs of the Emperor and Darth Vader. They are armed with weak red sabers, so as to not cause harm to the young Knights they are helping to oppress. They are also authorized to use bursts of force lightning. 

Notice the Aunts only wear a symbolic bracelet. Their access to the Force is monitored but not controlled.

_In canon, most Inquisitors are Jedi/Padawans forcibly turned via torture (thanks, Fallen Order, for making that painfully clear). This was a good direction for the Empire to take older Padawans, who weren’t so pliable and would probably fight being forced into this new role harder. Which is to say, yeah, we managed to make Inquisitors worse. -ghostwriter_

Angels: the guards of the Knights are chosen from the last of the Coruscant Guard. It is well known that the Knights will not cause them harm.

Names: Many of the younger Knights do not remember their names, but they remember their heroes, and many choose to use versions of those names as their own if they can’t remember. Very occasionally, they name each other, or are named by one of the guards/Angels. Ben is Dai Bendu for endurance, Deba is a version of Depa, and Soka was the nickname of the apprentice of the Hero With No Fear.

_Note on the General Concept: The Handmaid’s Tale is a book that is famously about the politicizing and policing of women's reproductive rights, bodies, and sexuality. Basically, crushing “deviancy,” however majority powers choose to define that. While the “reproductive rights” and “bodily autonomy” part of what’s happening to the Jedi in this AU is fairly obvious (and horrifying), the “crushing deviancy” bit goes in a slightly different and, I think, interesting direction. The “deviancy” of the Jedi culture, and the thing that the Empire has forced them to give up, is one that comes from_ not _focusing on romantic/sexual relationships. The fact that this culture prioritizes other relationships — family/community, self-actualization, a personal relationship with the Force — over romantic love or the drive for sex is what is seen as “deviant” and therefore something that needs to be crushed, and fixed with Good and Useful Reproductive Sexual Relationships. Do I think that this is something that the fandom also does to the Jedi, because a lot of people can’t imagine not putting romantic and sexual relationships above everything else? And that’s part of the reason there’s a lot of fandom hate for them? Well. I’ll just say I’m very tired and also sex-repulsed asexual, and leave it at that. -ghostwriter_


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> analysis notes on chapter two, including Dai Bendu, the setting, and comparisons to the original novel!

The movement of the curtains in the wind reminds her of the flow of the Force, which she is blocked away from. The use of Jedi-made rugs is an insult, as they are imbued with love in the Force and this is a loveless situation, and a reminder that her home and culture is lost to her.

_ On the rugs, and the robes: we very much liked the idea of Palpatine dangling little bits of their old life in front of the Handmaid Knights. Just enough to remind them. Just enough, and just wrong enough, to mock them. And just enough for any free Jedi looking in to  _ hurt from it.  _ -ghostwriter _

Thinking - or meditation - is carefully controlled, because the Inquisitors and Eyes will feel any attempt to access the Force, which is what happens in a meditative state whether it is meant or not.

Death and the Force, we need not provide you the meta for that. I’m sure you have plenty of your own.

“I am alive,

I live and I breathe,

I feel the flow of the Force in my lungs.”

Lineage mantras are a key part of being a Jedi, but all she remembers are the ones from when she was very little, so she has produced her own. It is based off the sentence in the original novel: 

“I am alive, I live, I breathe, I put my hand out, unfolded, into the sunlight.”

Colour symbolism: brown, beige, cream, these are all colours of the Jedi. A Knight’s uniform is very similar to that of a traditional Jedi (Yeah, we cried too.). Brown is the colour of mud, of fertile earth. The Jedi robes, which should be a symbol of hope and the Light side of the Force, are now a taunt of how far they have fallen under the Empire’s regime.

Jaieh-full: hc that Jedi Knights and Masters have subtly different fits of robe, and Masters tend to have the looser sleeves and more flowing cloaks. The Knights’ robes here are a combination. Jaieh is Dai Bendu for Master, as in, in the mastery of oneself in the Force. 

Jedi Knights would have been entitled to their own room in the Temple, or to a shared set of Knight's quarters. She refuses to claim the room because it is not her home, and she hasn’t earned it by trials: her memories assure her of that.

(re: reference to Alderaani Fern: look they’re repressed and controlled but not idiots, there’s stuff in the Temple Gardens that could eat them, they know plants.)

Null: replacing the Marthas of the original text and their green dresses, we have instead the Nulls, in silver-grey. Null is a reference to their lack of both Force Sensitivity and social standing. They are considered only slightly better than droids and Clones. The grey also links them to the Empire, as property. 

A note on attitudes towards the Force Sensitives: she implies nobody respects her and that she is not very powerful in society (she isn’t). In the original text, Offred says that “Nobody cares much about who sees the face of a Martha,” implying people do very much care about who sees her own face. As we see with Rita, “it’s the red (brown) dress (robes) she disapproves of.” She sees that there is no choice, but she still doesn’t agree, which is better than outright disgust; however, she disapproves of her as a Jedi-remnant, as well as for being a Handmaid Knight. The situation is, all-around, really fucked up. 

Token books: ration book, or pre-paid with credit chips? We’ll let you know, eventually.

“Child though I was.” Special shoutout to anyone who can work out the timeline, and manage not to swear at us for it.

_ Working out the timeline was about when the both of us realized how dark this darkfic was gonna get. -ghostwriter _

The Colonies is what the Emperor calls the Rim planets. Being sent out there is basically a death sentence, especially for a Force Sensitive.

Cora, in the original novel, says that “If I hadn’t of had my tubes tied, it could of been me, say I was ten years younger.” We thought that a bit of Force Sensitivity and a reference to the Purge would be a suitably disturbing replacement, considering we’re playing more off Force ability than reproductive ability. Cora is also lower class, note the incorrect grammatical structure of her speech (yes, this is a point you can use in an essay, it’ll get the language analysis marks).

Cora, not being particularly Sensitive, doesn’t understand how it feels to be cut off from the Force, but she has enough sympathy to feel bad.

  
  


When she is musing on what she would want to do - fantasizing about connection, of regaining the warmth of affection she remembers from her youth - the Force is a key aspect of her imaginings. This is both because she is locked out of it with the cuffs, which are an attempt to control the Jedi whilst also accessing the potential for the midichlorians to be passed into their offspring, but because she is a Jedi and craves the deep connection with the Force which is the most fulfilling connection of a Jedi’s life. As mentioned in the ghostwriter’s earlier comments, the Jedi place a high value on platonic and familial relationships, which makes them deviants in the eyes of ‘society’, especially on Coruscant. The unfortunate truth of the matter is that even if she was free of the cuffs, this daydream-interaction wouldn’t take place, as the Jedi are considered pariahs by the Empire.

The Empire has many terrible opinions, but here we see one key one brought out: the negligible value of life in its own right. Where the Jedi are taught from as young as possible to value life and the marks that life leaves on the Force and on people, the Empire value the offspring of the Knights only for their potential use as Dark Force Users. They pass of the sorrow of a stillborn child by reducing it down to a matter of potential. She also knows that the Dark is what is responsible for all these negative traits, recognising jealousy as a Dark emotion. 

“ _ Worked like a charm, though you'd think she'd tasted it. Must've been that drunk: they found him out all right.”  _ Regarding this sentence, the original novel focuses on the division between fertile female bodies and everyone else. Our version delves more into the focus of the Emperor of the potential Force Sensitivity of future children; hence both males and females are made into Knights. 

“I hunger to be warm.” Now, in the original text, this scene has a bit more emphasis on the theme of the physical, of hungering for flesh. Yeah. We’re acespec and so is the OC, and we’ve been over our shared opinions on the Jedi and their relationships with each other. Instead of craving the touch of flesh, she craves the warmth of being able to bond with other Force Sensitives. In Jedi culture it is considered a horrible failure to allow another to be cold, especially the children. The Dai Bendu for welcome home translates to “it is cold outside, but we warm here together”. She is cold; it is unlikely she has ever felt warm since her childhood. Jedi struggle to feel warm when they can’t access the Force.

_ -Adding a layer to this is the fact that Force suppression is the equivalent of a form of sensory deprivation. Being blindfolded for a decade plus would probably create similar results, made worse by the fact that the sense isn’t really  _ gone _ , just being kept from you. -ghostwriter _

This section is originally: “The Marthas are not supposed to fraternize with us. Fraternize means to behave like a brother...there is no corresponding word that meant to behave like a sister.” However, we figure that the Jedi don’t tend to use such words, and as she has no knowledge of Mando’a she doesn’t know the word ‘vod’; hence we replaced fraternize with showing compassion, a much more recognisable trait of the Jedi. She knows that the Empire is encouraging them to forget these gentler Jedi emotions; whether she can resist them without the Force? Well, who can say.

_ -This was also changed because Atwood wrote this line specifically about how male-dominate even our language is (“there is no word for sororize”) — females do not even have their own space within our words. As we’re taking a slightly different approach to the subject, and there are both male-bodied and female-bodied Knights in this story, we made it more about the Empire’s general attitude of cruelty and dehumanization. -ghostwriter _


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the Knights, discussion of Palpatine, explorations of symbolism, implications of things, notes on ages of Knights in our adaptation. And, of course, a standing invite to leave your own meta in the comments!!

In the original, the Wives are barren, which is why the Handmaids have a place in society. Here, it is unknown whether the Wife is capable of childbearing or not: for the purposes of this fic it is also entirely irrelevant. She is unlikely to have a Force Sensitive child, and so the Knight is sent to this abode. It is a sign of the Emperor’s favour. The original novel has a scene in the garden here, but we deleted it, as Coruscanti skyscrapers don’t have gardens, and even if the apartment does, she is not allowed in it.

Please give us any analysis you have of “humanoid figures” and the whole “attainable goals” paragraph, we’re very interested to hear it.

“A reproach, an insult, a necessity.” A reproach in that the Emperor doesn’t deem them likely to birth a Force Sensitive, which is also the insult. A necessity, in that the Emperor has assigned her, and so she stays.

Regarding “unsure of our exact status,” in the original this refers to the fact that the upheaval from ‘normal’ to dystopian happened fairly recently, approximately six to eight years ago. However. The regime of the Emperor began at ROTS with the Purge of the Jedi, and as we are sure you’ve noticed, that was some time ago. Each Knight faces the struggle of settling into the household and finding a routine, and as opposed to being a blanket sort of rule as in the original novel, Knights on Coruscant have to deal with life case-by-case.

_ -This also means that whatever (negligible) protection the state might have given to Handmaidens in the original book is nonexistent here. This is because Palpatine still does actually want the Jedi to die out. He just wants it to happen slower. -ghostwriter _

Colour symbolism: in the original novel the Wives all wear blue, to symbolise their serenity and peace or whatever the men in charge are trying to say. In the Empire wives of high-ranking Imperial officers are more likely to wear grey or silver or even black to present a united front, but blue is a popular colour for accessories such as umbrellas, handbags, scarves, as they symbolise the new era of “peace” in the human-centric Empire. Also reds, but more commonly blue. 

The robes in the novel are all mostly the same with social class distinguished by colour, not cut; however, the opulence of the Empire encourages showy displays just as much as the Senate ever did, hence she notes that the robe is “not at all like mine.” Is it lingerie? A dressing-gown? A kimono? You decide.

“Should the Commander wish to show me off.” The original is that she has heavier winter robes and dresses coming, but Coruscant is climate controlled, so we’ve replaced it with a heavier robe for ‘winter’ and a few very simple robe-like dresses, because Palpatine definitely seems like he’d want his fallen Jedi Knights to be flaunted, especially considering just who will be able to see them regularly. But to tell you who this would be is classified as a spoiler for the bonus stories, so we won’t be releasing the names. 

_ -This is also a deep violation of what the Jedi should be, because something a Jedi shouldn’t be is the center of attention — not in the way this passage implies. -ghostwriter _

“Best not to speak” because as we all know, you let even a baby Jedi open their mouth and you’ve got a problem. Hence, the Knights are encouraged not to initiate anything, although they do have to answer direct cues. They have no way of communicating except their silent Dai Bendu.

Deathsticks are just cigarettes, but if you’ve ever seen any pack of cigs in the UK, you’ll know - say it with me - smoking kills. So yeah, deathsticks are a thing. Have you any idea how much the government tax those for - 

“Like liquor and coffee, cigarettes are forbidden” is a way in which the original text really draws out how much the regime controls her body. As a Jedi, alcohol to excess and cigarettes and caf addictions would have been frowned upon; now she has no choice to even taste.

_ -In the original, this was also to really drive home that this is very much a Religious Dictatorship, as most very by-the-Book sects of the major Aberhamic religions, plus the Latterday Saints, also forbid these things (notice it says liquor, not alcohol, so wine’s okay). That’s less of a thing here, and therefore it just really drives home how very, very controlled these people are being. -ghostwriter _

On her age: so each placement, as per the book, is two years. She is five weeks into her third. She grew up in this Empire. Human females enter the ‘system’ at 18. Do a wee bit of rapid mathematics. And now think about the fact we had to re-do the timeline. Make sure you mop your tears up, they’ll dry out your skin. 

The book provides plenty of clear description about the Wife, whose name is revealed to be Serena Joy. However, the theme of this novel is not male against female and the way the regime represses all women, but rather the Jedi against the Sith, and so we have dropped the descriptions of her to allow you to imagine whoever you like. She’s a little arthritic, old enough to have been socially active before the Purge, and natural blonde with frighteningly blue eyes. Unlike the Wives in the original text, most of the Wives in Maiden Knight still remain socialites, decorating the arms of their husbands or whatever you want to believe an Imperial Commander’s wife would dedicate time to. 


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick, Clones, Blessed Be The Fruity Booty, parallel characters, and "Fantasy, Sex, and the Jedi: a short essay."

In which Grace retconned Nick’s character for her own reasons, which are “I think I can use this to make you cry”. 

Clone rights: have at, dear readers, we want your meta.

Emperor’s eyes: look. Palpatit may be a bastion of Sithliness. But he isn’t omniscient, he needs spies.

“May the Force be with you/ the Emperor provide” is our version of the “blessed be the fruit” (of the womb) and “May the Lord open” (the womb) exchange which is just. So awful. And we made it worse for you!

_ -Again, here we have Palpatine dangling little pieces of the Knight’s old way of life in front of them, and then  _ twisting  _ it. Because he not only wants these people dead, he wants this way of life so confused and tainted that no one will ever try to revive it. Because Palpatine is the fucking worst. -ghostwriter _

A fun fact: my friend had a pretty 50s style dress with cherries on it. My other friend, in a fit of absolute 17-year-old genius, said the phrase “Blessed be the fruity booty,” and I have honestly no reason not to use this line more regularly.

- _ Way to lighten the mood, Grace. -ghostwriter _

  
  


“We hope she is home,” look there’s no kind way to say this. Dead. They hope she is One with the Force, which is all any of them wish for. Home, and warm.

Look! Cal! Please don’t hurt us. Also, Ofglen has been adapted to Ofgleya for Star Wars-ification, and because this regime isn’t about division of sexes but more about the division of Force Sensitives from the rest of the population. 

_ -This one can be placed firmly on me. Cal being here is my idea and my fault. So you can give Grace a break and break me instead. -ghostwriter _

In the novel, the rebels are Baptists, but given the context of Star Wars, I think using Twi’leks and the Syndullas is a good idea. 

_ -Rebels and Star Wars go together like butter on bread. The Rebels are the Rebels. (hm wonder if this is gunna be relevant in side stories—)-ghostwriter _

_ Note on Titles: Yep, Handmaidens are called ‘Knights’ here, for peak ‘twist the knife’ and condescending humiliation reasons. If you think that’s painful, please consider that during our very initial brainstorm for this, the idea of calling the Handmaidens ‘Padawans’ was thrown out, before we thought about it for 30 seconds and became so disgusted with the idea, the implications, and ourselves that we almost set our computers on fire. -ghostwriter _

Mace was a soft heart with the children and provided contraband sweets: come meet me in the creche and I’ll fight you for the right to soft Jedi.

Fantasy, sex, and the beliefs of the Jed, or: not everyone wants sex all the time and we’re not talking about sex. The original text, in this scene, is about her wondering about the possibility of touch, of desire, but in our story she is thinking more about deeper emotional connection and not just some form of physical release. This is for three reasons: firstly, that the Jedi wouldn’t have been raised to think in tems of sex and desire, so she doesn’t treat that as a priority. Secondly, we’re coding her to be acespec, because acespec people exist. Thirdly, sex isn’t forbidden in Knight as it is in the original novel. The honour of having a Knight is a reflection of the Emperor’s favour and your social standing. And. Also. I’m willing to lay money on the top trope of the entire fiction section of the holonet is about Jedi and debauching them - or being debauched, I’m sure. 

_ -I’m also sure that discovering these holos exist is a source of absolute confusion and befuddlement for many young Jedi. -ghostwriter _


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Notes on structure, freedom, biblical context analysis, context notes for HT and comparison to Knight, Ofgleya, cuffs, characters, and more context.

A fair amount of ‘flashback’ content has been cut out of the story, because the content simply doesn’t fit what we have done. However we have provided plentiful references to what she does remember, such as the Clones, and the crechemasters. 

_ -What do you think is worse, knowing what you’re missing, or not knowing? -ghostwriter _

“There is more than one type of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don’t underrate it.” Single most haunting sentence in the whole damn novel. Plenty of analysis to be done on freedom, and the way that the “freedom to and freedom from” motto reflects modern society.

_ -on “little practical boots” — it’s sometimes those tiny little details that really hit you, huh? -ghostwriter _

Guaranteed context-mark-gaining likely unwanted analysis of biblical references in the text. It is surprising I haven’t started on this theme already. Alright kids, get your highlighter out and summon up your context notes, we’re going on a ride, and if I shut up on this theme in under three hundred words, it’ll be a miracle. 

“The Empire/Gilead knows no bounds. You carry it within you.” This is an Atwood-ification of the concept that the Kingdom of God is carried within us, which is a concept well suited to the Force

The shop signs in the book are images only, relating to Biblical motifs that allow for the name - or perhaps theme would be a better description - of the shop to be deduced. ‘Lilies’ is the name of the clothing shop, from the well-known phrase “look to the lilies of the field” from Matthew 6:28, part of Jesus’ illustration that God cares for his people. In full, the passage is: (28) Also, why are you anxious about clothing? **Take a lesson from the lilies of the field** , how they grow; they do not toil, nor do they spin; (29) but I tell you that **not even Solʹo·mon** **in all his glory was arrayed as one of these**. (30) Now if this is how God clothes the vegetation of the field that is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much rather clothe you, you with little faith? (31)So never be anxious.

It is fairly evident why this passage was chosen to represent the clothing shop in the setting of an evangelical society. Interestingly, the beautiful woman in the Song of Solomon is also described as being like a lily: she was faithful to god and to her intended husband, and was praised for being beautiful “inside and out” as they say. It is likely that the society, called Gilead in the novel and The Empire here, chose the lily to carry both of these connotations. 

_ -I. Can’t actually add anything to that. Thank you, Grace, for your succinct and apt analysis of biblical scripture. -ghostwriter _

On the theme of the signs, in the novel they’re very much restricted in what they’re allowed to learn - if you control education, if you can prevent them from reading and being able to communicate, well, uprisings are a lot harder to organise. Keeping them educated isn’t likely to be high on Palps’ list of desirable traits in his psychic “broodmares” (yuck, Palpatine).

_ -”Real, proper Knight:” a memory, that this is not what her people should be. This is not what this title should mean. And she knows, that she used to be someone who made people’s lives better, which is what Knights are supposed to do. And she misses that purpose, deeply. She wants to be valuable for something other than an object to grow a child in. -ghostwriter _

_ -Food availability: In the book, this is a lot of context for the current state of the world/the USA. We don’t need that here, so I decided to make it more about the memories food brings than where the food is from, and also how easy it is to get it. Though I do not think this is addressed in canon, I cannot imagine that Sheev is the type of person to make sure food is available to all his people, or that food supply lines would be very functional after the war and the fall of the Republic. Rationing is a great way to control people, after all. -ghostwriter _

_ -Cal’s name, and Cal himself: Protag remembers Cal from when they were being “trained” at the Temple, and the time before, too. Cal’s easy to remember, because he is older, had a bed near hers, and probably his hair helps. Protag is elated that she knows his name, even though she can’t even tell him that she knows it — remembering a name is something so special it’s almost holy. Cal himself is on the older side of Knights (he’s somewhere between 25 and 29. There, more timeline hints!), and, yes, there’s a lot of guilt that comes from that. He  _ does  _ remember more of what they should be. He remembers his Jaieh. And he thinks he should have helped the little ones hold onto themselves more. Should have helped more escape. He’s got that guilt, on top of the horror. -ghostwriter _

Here is as good a place as any, I suppose, to mention that male Knights don’t have even as many chances as the female ones: they’re under a very similar but far less personal pressure. What is it, exactly, that he feels? We can’t imagine, but it isn’t good.

_ -Less of a feeling of competition between the Knights here as opposed to the book, where this scene is very much about how being pregnant is something to be flaunted and for other Handmaidens to be jealous of. Atwood was making a point here, I think, about how societies turn women against other women, even in the most awful and oppressive of situations. To contrast, we are making a point about secret connections in awful situations. What the Jedi want in this story is their culture and family and warmth back, and so they would still want to reach out to each other, and mourn when this happens to one of their own. Also, the idea of having a child because you are one of the few women who can carry children left, and the idea of having a child because the monster who killed your people wants more psychic children — yes, very different connotations. There’s nothing noble about what’s going to happen to their children. The children will most likely be taken from them. This is something to mourn. -ghostwriter _

_ -The cuffs are bad for the babies: But, also, because Sheev is a monster, he’s gotta make them want it, on some level. When they’re pregnant, they get to feel the Force. Just a little bit. -ghostwriter _

What would you do, to feel something like whole again? How long would it take to reconcile your manner of existence to this opportunity to feel? 

_ -”Looking like a Jedi:” gotta keep the symbols pretty, you know? -ghostwriter _

_ -Janine: again, in the book, there’s a lot more anger, jealousy, and competition between these two women. Offred flat out states that she doesn't like her. Atwood is really reenforcing this idea of women being turned against and used to hurt other women, and how that allows patriarchy to thrive. There’s more comradery with the Knights here, so we’ve softened this bit. --ghostwriter _

_ -The string— this was originally a flashback about plastic bags. I decided to make it worse! -ghostwriter _

I was about to yell about this, but really, what else were we supposed to do? Pass up the opportunity to cause vast amounts of pain for you dear readers? Of course not.

The scene with the tourists in the original novel contains more of an emphasis on freedom to dress how they like, the little nothings we tend to take for granted like high heeled shoes or nail polish. However, we didn’t like the tone of that scene when compared to the emphasis on family and warmth, so we’ve taken a different approach and focussed on the family. 

_ -In the book, this is very much an exchange about women being in charge of their bodies and sexuality, with some interesting undertones of post-Colonialism, as these are specifically Japanese tourists and are dressed in a way Offred points out used to be called “Westernized.” And also, the fact that women just standing there, existing and wearing skirts and tights, is immediately sexuilized is a tension the original scene explores. Neither of those ideas worked super well for our purposes, so this was shifted slightly. -ghostwriter _

The exchange about the holocamera is almost the same. The interpreter is probably working for the government, so if they take the risk of allowing these possible rebel sympathisers to take their photo, they also run the risk of punishment. 


	6. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some more symbolism and references, in-universe propaganda, and "it will become ordinary."

All Flesh comes from “all flesh is grass,” in Isaiah 40:6 Listen! Someone is saying: “Call out!” Another asks: “What should I call out?” 

“ **All flesh is** **green grass.** All their loyal love is like the blossom of the field. (7) The green grass dries up,The blossom withers.” 

It’s about the impermanence of humanity contrasted to the permanence of God - or, in the context of Knight, the Force - but that our short lives don’t mean we can’t love. All flesh is grass: short lived yet beautiful. I think this is double-edged for our protagonists: the Empire won’t last, but will they live to see it fall? Jedi excel at hope, but she can’t be a true Jedi right now.

The museum is a nice piece of in-universe propaganda we invented. Why wouldn’t Palpatine establish certain methods of ensuring the Jedi have a certain image to the public eye? The plaques are based off what you’d see in almost every settlement in Great Britain old enough to have sent off troops to the World Wars: a memorial of some description, coated in names. A gravestone for those who could not be buried. Entire families, even the entire male population, gone. How very cutting that is, for us to not need to invent these parallels. 

Cal does indeed have people to pray for. He remembers, and he grieves. 

Is the Wall implying that the Temple is perhaps sentient? Yes, frankly. I love a good sentient home. 

_ -We cut several paragraphs of corpse-description, as well as make the hanging bodies just general traitors as opposed to what they are in the book, which are doctors who give abortions. This was mostly to keep everything in line with the SW setting, and also cause Atwood spent an absurd amount of time on those bodies. Like, in the book this goes on for sentences and sentences of beautiful, lush description. Which is important for what Atwood is doing! Not so much here. -ghostwriter _

Palps was very much xenophobic, the opposite of a Jedi. He seeks out excuses to eliminate those he dislikes, and he’s succeeded in raising at least one generation of Jedi children who don’t have that impulse of agape, principled love for all on the basis that all life deserves love, a key basis of Jedi faith? A Jedi is a vessel of the Force. She is merely a vessel. 

“It will become ordinary.” This is very much the base tenet of any regime or way of life: if you can make a thing, especially a horrible one, seem ordinary, unremarkable, nothing to be upset about, then there is less likelihood of resistance. Unfortunately, given the time passed, it has indeed become ordinary. She has lost the empathy and love for all life that should be her identifying characteristic as a Jedi. 


	7. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Structure, Fox, ouchies, and Jedi storytelling traditions.

According to my notes - and this is the copy of the novel I annotated the living daylights out of to pass my A Level - “the night is mine” is an anti-porn logo. I refuse to look this up and verify the claim.

_ -I still don’t know what A-Level is in American, but I concur nevertheless. -ghostwriter _

Apparently, it’s a bit above an AP. Two years of Pain and Studying and you get a letter at the end of it that lets you into Uni. Yippee.

_ -OH not APs, APs are optional and help you not have to take certain credits in college. SAT. They’re kinda like specialized SATs, maybe? -ghostwriter _

Flashback scenes are important in the novel to trickle-feed us the events that lead up to the dystopia, and it’s the same for us. We show you a range of Jedi Masters etcetera, her memories that prove all the Empire’s propaganda is wrong. The book burning scene was an awkward one to adapt, because of how much had to be cut and spliced, but I think it turned out appropriately painful. Instead of sulking that her mother is meeting her friends to burn magazines, child is sulking that the Guard had to leave the crechelings and handle the incident. Commander Fox is not letting anyone near his crechelings, though, so he swoops in and takes her back. And, to whet the appetite: Fox will be back. 

_ -I would never, ever deny Grace a chance to (correctly) write Fox as a grumpy overprotective child guardian. -ghostwriter _

Writing this scene with the initial brainwashing was painful. She was a child, and the Sith held her alone and broke down her connection to the Force until there wouldn’t be enough of a Jedi foundation left to keep her strong. A broken Force Sensitive, the perfect seed of a weapon, or indeed, a possession. Notice that they use the Clones as leverage, how they are essentially holding an entire army, a whole people, hostage. They have made the Clones blank, and to the Jedi, that means they’re dead.

_ -On Jedi storytelling tradition: a lot of this is my personal headcanon, fleshed out via brainstorming with some lovely people on Discord. Pretty much, a lot of Jedi storytelling tradition is told in the second person, with ‘you’ being the main character, because they double as thought experiments and philosophical lessons. There’s also a lot of audience participation and call and response. So the person telling the story sometimes gets to decide where the story goes next:  _ “do you take the knife,”  _ or _ “do you go right or left?”  _ There’s no right or wrong answer, and the story can go on either way. Every retelling is a little bit different, depending on who is telling and who is listening. Kinda like D&D! This wasn’t thought of specifically to make this part of the book worse, but it kinda does it anyway. Lucky us, I guess?  _

_ “Listen well and hear my voice” is the Jedi version of “once upon a time,” and all credit for that goes to the ever-brilliant [loosingletters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loosingletters/pseuds/loosingletters). -ghostwriter _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any questions about anything we've done can be dropped in the comments, or you can come scream on tumblr, or whatever you like really!! Just trust that everything we do _is_ deliberate.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mayday/help me, funerals and fertility, Cal again, Nick and Offred, human connection, and our favourite Jedi Master, and Go Watch Prince Of Egypt To Lift Your Spirits.

_ -Again, we took out some stuff here that just straight-up didn’t work with the setting. That stuff really nails home the _ Gender Horror  _ of the original. The term “Gender Treachery” is used for two Guardians who are killed for being gay (it’s stated they were caught together). Interestingly, a priest who wears a black cassock is also killed, and there  _ is  _ a lot to unpack about that, if you wanna use it in an essay. All of that is less relevant to the Empire, so we made this about how anti-nonhuman they are. -ghostwriter _

_ -In the original, Ofglen says “It’s a beautiful May day,” which sends Offred into a spiral of thinking about the word “mayday” and where it comes from, which is the French word for ‘Help me.” I thought about making French Ryl for about 30 seconds, then decided that felt lazy and went with the sign language instead (also cause the concept of the month of May in a sci-fi setting broke my brain.) Is Cal making this gesture on purpose? hm…. -ghostwriter _

We tossed up whether to keep the funeral or not, because this story isn’t about fertility overall but more about Palpatine breeding an army of force users (what a vile sentence), but overall decided that it does fit. After all, in the Force, all life is to be mourned, even when it isn’t considered ‘special’. The striped dresses symbolise the “Econowives”, low class and infertile, but here we’re aiming more for lower class. What was Uncle Lydol meaning by “them”? No more poor people, or no more non-force sensitives?

Cal is the object of her fantasy: he had training, he lived the Wars, he is the closest she now has to a fully fledged Jedi Master to save her life. But Cal is more broken by this regime than she is, and he can’t help her right now. Or can he?

To make up for cutting a paragraph there we added some sentences to this bit, replacing “Under His Eye” with “Glory to the Empire”, because what’s a facist regime without painful pruning of the language permitted to be used and some frankly insulting set phrases. 

‘All is weak. All is the Force.” We simply changed the phrase here, because “All flesh is weak/ All flesh is grass” didn’t quite convey an appropriately Force-ified sentiment. All flesh is grass comes from, as best as I can pin down, 1Peter 1:24 “For all flesh is like grass, and all its glory is like a blossom of the field; the grass withers, and the flower falls off.” 

You may notice I’ve written a note on this already, and I referenced Isaiah. Well, they’re both correct: Peter was quoting Isaiah. 

Nick: we may have said this, but the novel relationship between Nick and Offred is not the relationship that will develop in Knight.

_ That being said, the relationship that  _ does  _ develop between this Nick and this Protagonist is something we are both very proud of. -ghostwriter _

_ On Anakin: Yeah, we'll be getting way more into this later, but Anakin really isn't his best self in this universe. Like, more than he's already not his best self anytime after the third act of ROTS starts. Anakin, we love you dearly, but your choices and rationalizations in this universe are gunna be particularly Not Good. -ghostwriter _

Duchess of Mandalore: :D :D d’you like that 

_ -Oh god here it comes… -ghostwriter _

Master Kenobi: WE WERE SO EXCITED FOR THIS you must hate us yes, good, good, use it! Please rant at us. 

_ Most of this part in the book, which we used for above terrible revelation, was used to talk about Serena Joy and how far she’s fallen in this world. Important for a story about gender inequality, not so important here. -ghostwriter _

“It’s not the husbands, it’s the Wives.” Now, we have shown that the gender is not the emphasis of this story, but this line is still a good one. As mentioned, the men don’t survive as long - give up hope faster - and the majority of Palpatine’s staff is male. Biology remains biology, and I don’t think he’ll be using the Force to meddle in these affairs. After all, if his plan doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter. The Jedi are gone; the Knights are merely the final kick to the ribs.

_ The kitchen scene was expanded slightly because we wanted it to be more about protag being starving for kindness and aggressively (for her) trying to make a connection, after that pointed moment of cruelty in the other room. She’s trying to find a counterbalance. She does not find it. -ghostwriter _

Milk and Honey: the land of milk and honey, promised to the Hebrews on their Exodus of Egypt. Do yourself a favour and watch Prince of Egypt, have a good cry, and return to us with your faith strengthened (or not, but that movie is incredibly powerful regardless of your religious beliefs, don’t you think? This note has no relevance to Knight.)

_ On The Commander: fuck this guy, in both versions of the story. -ghostwriter _

Ditto.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Possessions, being a Jedi, and Dai Bendu.

It’s interesting that she’s slipped into calling the room hers. It’s such a little thing, but it’s quite telling: she isn’t feeling the horror she thought she would for the regime, she’s claimed the room, she’s noticed herself struggling with un-Jedi like feelings. Has she, at some subconscious level, accepted the existence of the Empire? It seems probable, considering how young she was when the Empire burst into existence.

_ “I never finished learning” and “What was that kata?” — Both cementing how young she was when this change happened, how brutal reconditioning was, and how easy it is to erase a culture if you try hard enough. -ghostwriter _

_ “We slept in piles in the creche” — you can pull this headcanon out of my cold, dead hands. -ghostwriter _

_ And here we have our version of the infamous “Don’t let the bastards grind you down” Latin!! _

I love the Dai Bendu conlang, because it allows for such lovely nuances as this. The dark, but not the Dark. It’s comforting, isn’t it? That we may be in circumstances beyond our control, but that doesn’t mean we’ve lost control of ourselves or that the circumstance is able to change who we are and should be. 

_ Now is the time I get to nerd out about constructing this conlang on main— Dai Bendu has 3 separate words for ‘darkness’ _ . _ This phrase uses two; “valra” (here, “valrael,” in our dative case) is the word for literal, physical darkness, “Hey, turn on the lights!” darkness. “Xari” (here “xariel,” in dative again) is Force darkness, the Dark side. (The third word, for the curious, is “sii,” which is Darkness specific to the Sith.) So the literal meaning of the phrase is “you are in literal darkness, but not in the Dark Side.” It’s a way of saying “things seem bad, but there is still the Light.” Even if you can’t see it, there’s still the Light. This was, again, not something made for this specific use, but fit so perfectly I jumped up and down a whole bunch when I made the connection. -ghostwriter _

We dropped Moira. She’s important to the original novel, absolutely, but due to what we’ve done to the timeline her character and scenes just don’t fit properly. I guess she’d be Quinlan? Which now that I’ve said it is a take I want to see, a bit. If we’d gone with my half-baked initial plan, then he would be. 

_ Maybe we’ll write an outtake!! -ghostwriter _

We’re going to have as many outtakes as we will actual novel.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short one - since we've covered lots of our key topics by now. This week: the Jedi and Order 66.

Watch us worldbuild the Jedi into the beautiful multiculture they deserve to be. 

_ “Don’t think it’s easy on me either.” The worst part about Aunts, Uncles, and Inquisitors, and something that I think is worse here than the HMT story; they’re pretty much all former Jedi. -ghostwriter _

Again, we wrote a scene featuring the Guards and the crechelings, because doesn’t Order 66 hurt so much more when it’s personal? The reference to Healer Eerin is a reference to our now server-wide love for the group we call Vorpaak: Quinlan, Luminara, Garen, Reeft, Bant, Siri, and Obi-Wan. And their kids Aayla, Bariss, Anakin, and Ashoka, of course.

“We thought we’d be safe there” is a line that gets me right in the feelings, because we see so much evidence of the Jedi doing as much as they can to protect their children, and it didn’t work.

Jedi can have fun, and this Jedi (and we two authors) in particular would take great pleasure in nailing the Commander in the face with a water balloon. Or a brick. Or a lightsaber. 

_ how about all three?? -ghostwriter _


End file.
